The colour in the current WTM photo seems less vibrant and the background more cluttered by comparison, though having said all that I have no hesitation in agreeing with the comments above mine, so give it four and a half stars, unlike five for the last one!

Wow, I don't like to slag people off, but I find this pic really boring.
The climber looks more like an electrician staring at a bunch of wires rather than someone in the middle of a crux?
I generally rate these photos in two ways - one is a photo I'd hang on my wall; the other is something that makes me think I'd love to climb there... sadly this is neither.

Hero you do realise it is a Black Hill "slab". Have you ever climbed there?

There is no slabbing.

The slabs there are mostly very low angle face climbing with holds. More often than
not the holds are big (there is a reason you can't see many knuckles or slab
technique in these photos)
and if it wasn't for the first 2 metres it wouldn't be a climb at all and the only reason it
is brushed to the top is so you can say you did a 20m grade 20. Reality is you've
done one grade 20 move and then walked 19m up a steep slope to belay.

Stugang wrote:
> Reality is you've
done one grade 20 move and then walked 19m up a steep slope to belay.

Err .. I did that route just before Martin. You need to know the exit moves are fairly solid, probably 18. See that little shiny thing down the bottom of the pic? That's his last runner. You're looking at a 14m+ fall off gr 18 moves. Now breathe...

Since when was core strength ever required for climbing slabs bro stugang?
In fact I doubt core is used much in most similar graded (20 and below) face climbing, which is the next level up for physical difficulty?

Overhangs and bomb-bay flares on the other hand are another matter, but this pic is none of those.

I did hear an anecdote over the weekend. Robin Holmes took a fall off the top moves (just about where Martin is). As he didn't have the small cams to place in the last horizontal break, his last runner was the bolt a little further down.
He pulled up about 1m off the deck!